Tuesday, June 4, 2013

True Stories.. But the gods are to be blamed



I still can't seem to believe I am still here today, taking into cognisance who I am, what I have been through and the kind of world I live in as a Nigerian... omo Mehn! medically I should be gone. 

I was born in a totally sane and moral environment, believe me; the first lines of word I read were not "Alli and Simbi" although I knew Agbo lives in the town of Lagoon. My first textual conflagration were the crisp sweet sounding words of the psalmist in the Yoruba bible "Atoka" that my mum BANGED down my conscious and subconscious everyday (except Sundays) and I love reading them till  forever, so they became a part of me. Don't get holy and spiritual on me yet, I grew up on the street too and I could differentiate the smell of St. Moritz from Rothmans and Benson from a mile away… don’t say haaa! So you thought it was only MaryJ that smells differently? I knew my limits and I broke those limits a few times… so few that I can't forget breaking my limits but hey! that's for the street. I had a fair share of the good and the ugly and I have never had a bad day in my whole life… and the ugly were those moments when I had to fight for everything.  At home, in church, in school, everywhere I go, I was a force and an undeniable figure.

My life, good grades, friendship, family and foes at times and even the smiles I have on my face now are from the victories I won, the defeats are irrelevant because when I am knocked down, I don't stay down, I  get up again and knockout whatever it was that knocked me down… I found a stone for every  Goliath I came across in those Psalms and Proverbs, and the street thought me how to sling my shots so well that I have never been lucky enough to miss a shot… I dodged and parried a lot, but  for every shot I have made, believe me… no survivals. In all of my victory, I have been faced with this seemingly unbeatable system that brings death and we all just seem to hand over to God. It's neither the Nigerian Police, nor Nigerian  Politics or Rulership, those problems are not uniquely a Nigerian situations, they are problems peculiar to the world as a whole, only that CNN and BBC et al have made a success of reporting about others while they pull a wool on the eyes of the rest of the world about what goes on in their own backyard… It's about the Nigerian Health system, our doctors and the medical practice in Nigeria as a whole.

I will name names, point fingers and substantiate my claims with fact, maybe someone somewhere will see this and act accordingly because I don't seem to have a stone for this Goliath and the David's of this situation are just too sober and downtrodden with the pain of their loss that they still hand over back to God, the battles he has given them the weapon of victory for… with the hands of their enemies tied to their back.

I got this BBM broadcast from my Lil Sis in July 2012 about George Chimezie Egbuchulam and because she never get's to BC anything other than her business, I called her to confirm the authenticity of the BC and she was so passionate about saving his life because they were friends that I didn’t ask a single question further, I started telling people to help and was ready to put in my widows might too. It was a craze for me and I became a crusader for life. I went online and found this on George's FB page.


Even on his own sick/death bed, he was reaching out for the lives of others. After the test in July, his brother was a perfect match and the Ops was scheduled for October due to the number of patients and preparation of his brother for the Ops. A few days later, George was elated and posted on his FB page that the funds were good and ready, thanking all that donated a dime, nickel or kobo for making it happen that was on 18th of July, and by August 24th, he reminded us that his surgery was just a month away and that was the last we heard from him.




The operation was never carried out and we lost George Chimezie Egbuchulam  in Dec 2012, three months month after the date scheduled for the operations, not because of lack of fund or donor, but because UCH kept postponing the Ops for no good reasons until George took his last breathe. 

The story of George's battle was everywhere when he was fighting for his life, 
Click to read Omojuwa.com 
                      Lolade
                      LadunLiadi
                      Daily Tribune 
and more but 'what became of him", nobody knew...

Nobody was, questioned arrested, sued or brought to book for unhealthy health practices and George was gone with the wind. UCH still stands and till this morning, I am yet to hear a single good news from that sources other than story of medical neglect death of patients.




Sweet Heart
I remember calling Dayo a mad goat when he broke the news to me, it was almost unimaginable and I just felt it was a joke but not until I called home and I was told she's gone to be with the Lord. I was too afraid to cry, my pores became wet and my tongue twisted in silence. I wasn't going to ask, I got angry because of the love I had for her and my brother, I couldn't control it... I started asking questions, why should she leave now, it was too early, she wasn't due already, I felt anger and pain and my brain couldn't take it all at once. A minute of dementia and everyone around me kept asking questions but I had no answers at all, all I had was the tears in my eyes... and I am still shedding them as I write now with my fist cladded in a band, but my heart won't let me feel this pain now. I am waiting to exhale.


The doctors could have helped her, they had the go ahead to do a CS but they wanted her to push a little more until she pushed and broke the thin line between life and death. I couldn't cry when I picked her up at the morgue on her final journey to mother earth, I only asked her why she wouldn't hold on just a second more, just for Ruby to see her face.

We cry and smile now and all we sing now is "put the blame on me". The general hospital still stands, no doctor(s) was sued, nobody questioned, Life Goes On.

Olamide was just a bit over three years old when she was supposedly diagnosed with cancer... Yep! she didn't have no cancer but she was declared a Leukemia patient at the prestigious Lagos State University Teaching  Hospital (LASUTH). They started the cancer of the blood treatment procedures without being sure of it, they called it Acute Lymphoblastic leukemia... She was later referred to UCH (that old dreaded place) and they started; yes.. chemotherapy without conducting proper tests to confirm the recommendation of LASUTH.

Olamide's kept detoriorating so her parent decided to take her to the United States because they loved her too much and they could afford it. There they got the shocker and a revelation that they couldn't help but bath in tears for the pain she's been through.

Olamide was clean and there was no single cancerous cell in her body or blood. I wonder what happened here in Nigeria... was the problem  with the equipments or the medical personnel.. how did almighty UCH miss it all together... The good news was that she didn't have Leukemia but the sad tale was that the cancer treatment and chemo she was given in LASUTH and UCH had successfully damaged her spleen and her bone marrow... her body was no longer producing red blood cells and eventually, she died in the USA because she was poisoned with the leukemia treatment procedures from her beloved Nigeria.

Miguel accidentally drop-kicked a girl during his performance yesterday and he's probably getting a brain damage lawsuit for it, Dr. Delia got sued by Emilia's parent for negligence by the troubled doctor who delivered  her (read the full story here Delia) but in Nigeria, two reknowned medical institution, a federal and a state hospital across two states poisoned and killed little Olamide with cancer treatment when she didn't even have single cancerous cell in her body her parent are just leaving it for God to judge.

George's operation was postpone for months when everything was in place for it to go on, and we lost him to the cold hands of death... and nobody is asked, because he was just another dead victim of kidney problems.

Sweetheart is gone now and we can only put the blames on ourselves and wish we had flown her to yankee like a MPs wife to deliver Isabelle. Nobody is going legal for the obvious medical malpractices that led to it...

People die in hospitals all over the world but not this way. There are a million more cases of neglect in our medical institutions, the oath is just a oath and nothing more for Nigerian doctors especially in public hospitals. 

When are we going to leave God out of this situation and treat each others fuck up? 
WHO WILL CALL THE LAW TO STOP THIS MEDICAL MENACE in Nigeria?
When will Nigerians do the right thing?
When are we going to put caution in place, make a mince of one the too many defaulters so that the medical practice is taken the way it should be all over the world?

This stories are true and real.. But the gods are to be blamed!


1 comment:

Unknown said...

truely, the gods are to be blamed. the government of the day, those responsible for d day -to-day running of our hospitals, the not too enthusiastic doctors/specialist(all in position of influence to make the system run best)and others too many in the chain that turned themselves to gods, they need be sued and brought to book. it's high-time we "SPEAK OUT". So sad, these occurences.